


Six of Wands

by Hoeratius



Series: One night in Paris [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Also actual angst because Andromaquynh, Angst, But in a period-conforming French fin de siècle way, Gen, which is to say: they Lived for the Aesthetic and Andromache is Not Amused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26560195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoeratius/pseuds/Hoeratius
Summary: ‘I thought I was a widow tonight,’ I reminded him. ‘So that I might use my feminine wiles?’Sébastien chuckled. ‘My dear, the only woman more irresistible to a Frenchman than a young widow is an unhappy wife. I’ll disappoint you soon enough, then you can find someone to comfort you with information.’**Montmartre, Paris, 1895. A series of mysterious deaths leads the Guard to a secret society, which seeks to blur the boundaries between this world and the next. In her quest for answers, Andromache stumbles upon a tarot reader with an uncanny insight. Altogether, the night is a serious contender for the worst party she has ever attended.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko
Series: One night in Paris [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931623
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	Six of Wands

‘What’s this?’ Nile turned a sheet of thick, creamy paper over in her hands. One side showed an ink drawing of the Guard in outlandish dress: Nicky sporting a cravat and extremely regrettable moustache; Joe in elaborate robes with a curved sword dangling from his hip; and Andy standing tall and regal, dressed in a Greek gown and leafy headpiece. A disembodied hand rested on Andy’s waist, the rest of the person torn off.

The other side carried an invitation:

> _Yusuf al-Kaysani,_
> 
> _You are cordially invited to a soirée with the Society of the Silver Rose, at 7 Rue Dancourt, September 28._
> 
> _Walk in the Light_.

‘Oh, I remember that.’ Joe grinned as he took the paper from her. ‘Armand drew it. Great night.’

Nile sat down by the fire, resting her chin in her hands, ready for a story. ‘What happened?’

‘A job,’ said Nicky, at the same time that Andy snatched the invitation from Joe and muttered, ‘Nothing.’

***

**ANDROMACHE **

***

I knew this job was going to be tough when we walked into the den and I saw an etch of a sexy skeleton rising from its grave, bringing a rose to where its nose would have been.

So they were _that_ kind of Parisians. I glanced at Sébastien, who shared the French taste for the macabre, and he slid his arm around my waist.

‘I thought I was a widow tonight,’ I said, as we left Nicholas and Yusuf behind us. I caught the welcoming glances of two other guests, men dressed in the same type of sharp, dark suit that Nicholas had donned for the occasion, and smiled at them in greeting. ‘So that I might use my feminine wiles?’

He chuckled. ‘My dear, the only woman more irresistible to a Frenchman than a young widow is an unhappy wife. I’ll disappoint you soon enough, then you can find someone to comfort you with information.’

I placed my hand around his arm as we surveyed the party. Thirty or so people had flocked together in a pair of whisper-filled rooms, separated by a set of open sliding doors. Escape-wise, a single servant looked after the main entrance, and large French windows led out to the balcony. I stretched my neck to see over the heads of the crowd: two more doors at the end, one of which flew open when a tray-carrying servant entered. The kitchen was that way; which meant any secrets this house held were through that final door.

I returned my gaze to my dearly beloved husband. ‘Is that what we’ve come to, Sébastien? Pre-scheduled arguments?’

‘Just look exasperated and they’ll be all over you in a hot second.’

He reached into his front pocket and took out a silver cigarette case, embossed with his current initials - _SJMAP_ , for Sébastien Jean-Marie Auguste Pechet. Placing a cigarillo between his lips, he held out a lighter to me.

I rolled my eyes at him. ‘No wonder I’m unhappily married, can’t you light your own?’

‘I’m merely helping you get into character.’

As he leaned forward so I could light his cigarette, I whispered, ‘Any sign of our host?’

‘None.’

‘Right. Well. Come to me with a teary apology when you find something.’

I waited until he had straightened up and taken a long drag from his cigarillo until I set the second part of our scene in motion. Tightening my jaw with the distaste I had seen on many faces over the years, I lifted the hem of my dress with one hand and slapped Sébastien across the cheek with my other. Loud enough to catch attention; soft enough that they might think I had intended for it to remain a secret.

‘Why can’t you, for once, let me have fun?’ I hissed, turning away from him in disgust. I marched straight for the drinks table on the other side of the room, next to the mournful, pale youth that played some melancholy tune on the Steinway. With shaking fingers, I poured myself a glass of wine. Damsel in distress, waiting for a knight, until a deep voice said, ‘Here, let me.’

Nineteen seconds. A record.

‘Oh, no, you don’t have to,’ I said, as I set the decanter back.

I turned around to study the man that had approached me. Young - mid-twenties, I’d have guessed - with green eyes under a heavy, sorrow-laden brow. In his eagerness to pour me a drink, he left burgundy spots on the tablecloth, and I knew he was not the brains behind this operation. Probably not even the muscle. Just a pretty appendage.

He placed a hand on my arm, as if he needed to steady me. ‘Are you all right, Mademoiselle…?’

‘Madame,’ I corrected, and we both glanced at Sébastien, who had taken a seat at the cards table. ‘Madame Andromache Pechet.’

‘Madame Pechet - I must repeat my question. Do you need any help at all?’

‘I don’t even know any more.’ I raised my glass to my lips, pretending to drink, as I scanned the space behind my saviour’s shoulder. A group of youths looked back expectantly, including two girls who were in similarly Greek dress to myself and one in some Egyptian-looking garb. This was as good a way in as I was going to get. ‘Isn’t that why we’re all here, though? To find those answers?’

‘Do you mean at this party, or in this world?’

‘Oh, either. I don’t know any more.’ I brushed my hand over his sleeve, noting the mother-of-pearl in his golden cuff link. ‘And what’s your name, then?’

‘Thésée,’ he said. ‘Although tonight I feel more like Hector.’

I smiled, curled a lock of hair around my finger, aware of his gaze following my nail against the skin of my neck. ‘Perhaps I’m feeling more like Hélène.’

We locked eyes, and I had to admit: Sébastien did know what made French men tick. This was almost too easy.

I averted my face with a false modesty and let out a sigh. I caught sight of Nicholas and Yusuf across the room, both looking absurd in their own way, huddled together as they spoke to a bald man. Yusuf resembled a stage performer’s idea of Arabia, with his silver-stitched robes and coloured-glass-encrusted scimitar, whereas Nicholas could pass for an undertaker at the end of a stressful day. It was a testimony to the other guests’ commitment to fashion that neither of them stood out against the crowd.

Yusuf glanced my way. Both of us gave a minute shake of the head: no news.

Thésée followed my gaze and stiffened. ‘The other men you came with –’

‘Friends of my husband,’ I said, turning away from them. ‘What about your friends? How did you end up here?’

‘My friend Marie Soph - Mélisande,’ he said. ‘She has the Sight.’

‘Does she now?’

‘Always has,’ he said, puffing up his chest with pride. ‘Even when we were children, she would see what lay beyond the Symbols.’

‘What symbols?’

‘Everything. First she understood the stars without needing any charts, and then when she discovered Tarot… She foresaw her own mother’s death long before any of us even knew she was sick.’

‘That is so fascinating,’ I said, dragging my finger along my golden necklace. Predicting that someone was going to die – I knew better than anyone that the accuracy rate was not a hundred per cent, but if you give it long enough, most of those prophecies come to pass. ‘And she introduced you to this crowd?’

He nodded. ‘It’s only my third time here, but she’s been coming for months.’

‘Is she here tonight?’

Going one better than that, he placed his hand over the small of my back and gestured towards his group of friends. ‘Let me introduce you.’

I scanned the faces of everyone we passed, searching for someone who would lure these rich, young idiots here and then leave them by their family graves every fortnight. Until now, I’d assumed unwitting victims; but the pianist had begun to play _Dance Macabre_ and books on the occult lined the walls. They had to know what had happened to the previous partygoers - it had been all over the papers every week an heir or heiress had been found - or did they not make the connection between the dead and themselves?

My experience with French exceptionalism and their obsession with death made me suggest the latter. In which case, the best we could hope for was to save these fools from themselves.

Thésée’s group of friends fell silent when we approached. The Sight had not prepared them for conversation with strangers.

‘Everyone, this is Andromache,’ said Thésée. ‘It’s her first time. Andromache, let me introduce you to Astrolabe, Victor, Victoire, Isis, and of course Mélisande.’

I started to get a new appreciation for Sébastien’s pseudonym; clearly he merely followed a toned-down version of the current trend amongst French youths. I wondered what real names lay behind their pretences. It being Paris after the Romans had left, my money was on compound names featuring Jean for the men, Marie for the women.

Except maybe Astrolabe. That name was so absurd, he had to be a Jean, plain and simple. Nothing else was common enough to justify _Astrolabe_.

Mélisande stepped forward and held my hand in both of hers. She was striking: thick lines of kohl made her blue eyes shine, and her skin was whiter than milk. The tassels at the end of her earrings swept just over her shoulders with every movement, the tiny amber beads catching the light like drops of gold.

‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,’ she said, turning my hand over in hers without asking and bending closer to examine my palm. ‘Your energy is incredible.’

‘What do you mean, Ma - Mélisande?’ asked Thésée, his eyes shooting from her to me.

‘Andromache has travelled a long time to be here with us.’ When she glanced up, the eagerness in her gaze unsettled me, and I pulled back my hand. ‘It’s an honour to meet you, Andromache of Scythia.’

This was not happening.

I was here to read her, not the other way around.

Her eyes fell on my chest, where a miniature charm of my axe rested over the curve of my breasts. Of course - all these kids would have had their history lessons. This wasn’t linked to her deep insight into the universe.

Still, I shifted my weight so there was no way my knife bulged through the fabric of my skirts before I responded. ‘The pleasure is all mine, Mélisande. I have heard of your gifts.’

‘I told her all about you,’ said Thésée. ‘About-’

Mélisande did not even spare him a glance. ‘I would like to read your cards, Andromache.’

‘My cards?’

‘Well, my cards, laid for you,’ she said, raising her arm to reveal a clunky velvet pouch dangling from a golden loop around her wrist. ‘Would you mind if we find a table?’

On the one hand, yes, I would mind. Her cheeks were so heavily made up as to hide any sign of life, and I did not like the thought of those icy eyes prying into my life, whatever method - cards, stars, palm - she used.

On the other hand, she was evidently the leader of this group. I could do her a favour now and grill her at the same time, and hope she’d introduce me to the next level of fish in this morbid little pond.

I really hoped the others were on warmer trails than this.

‘It would be a delight,’ I said, to what looked like her genuine satisfaction, however difficult it remained to tell. As she hooked her arm around my elbow, Thésée clasped my hand in his.

‘Remember that she does not choose reality,’ he whispered. ‘She tells it as it is, but only you have the power to choose your own stars.’

‘That’s not how astronomy works.’

The corners of his mouth lifted in a wistful acknowledgement of my foolishness. ‘Leave astronomy to the scientists. They only know the facts for what they are, not what they mean. You’ll see.’

On that thoroughly unhelpful note, Mélisande and I secluded ourselves at one of the silk-draped tables dotted about the room. I manoeuvred myself into the corner chair, so I had sight over both Mélisande and the other guests at this side of the party. My jaw clenched when I spotted a circle of avid listeners admiring a speaker at their centre, until I recognised the scarlet robes as Yusuf’s. Whatever was going on over there, he had it under control.

Mélisande picked up the silver statuette of a half-woman, half-snake that writhed at the middle of our table and moved it aside, so the night-blue covering was free for her reading. A lock of auburn hair fell in front of her eyes as she pulled open her pouch and revealed a deck of thick, hand-painted cards, which she placed where the statuette had just been.

‘Have you ever had one of these before?’ she asked, folding her hands together in front of her bosom. ‘Are you familiar with the process?’

I had, once, when a spell of homesickness had made Nicholas decide we ought to spend some time in Genoa, about four centuries ago. The conclusions had failed to come true, if I remembered correctly. I had not found a husband and given birth to three healthy boys, and part of my was still insulted that that was what the soothsayer had thought I wanted.

As I picked up the cards and shuffled them lazily between my hands, I leaned back until the front feet of my chair lifted off the ground. ‘You’ve been doing this for long? Thésée said you’ve always had the gift.’

‘Unfortunately yes. The forces beyond selected me as their mouthpiece - well - at the very least from early infancy. But we’re not here to talk about me,’ she said, lowering her voice until it took on a rather sexy, husky tone. ‘Don’t think about me while you shuffle, it will confuse the energies. Focus on the question you wish to ask.’

I dropped the rest of the cards into my left hand and paused. ‘Who else do you tend to read for?’

‘My friends.’

‘Family?’

A crack in the foundation around her mouth revealed I’d struck a chord. ‘They don’t understand that there is more to this world than we can see, beyond what their priest tells them.’

‘So you’ve found a new family.’

‘Something you understand, no?’

One by one, I slid the cards from my left into my right hand. ‘The people here, how did you meet them?’

‘It’s Paris,’ she said. ‘We find each other. It’s not difficult.’

‘Bailley’s bookshop?’ I guessed.

She shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Thésée certainly goes there. They’re less keen on women, unless you’re Blavatsky. And now she’s dead, even that avenue has closed. You’re very new to this, then? What drew you here tonight?’

‘Won’t my cards tell you?’

‘They’ll reveal your real answer. I’m asking what you think it is.’

‘Why?’

‘Professional curiosity.’

She thought she was so clever. A middle-aged woman, married to a drunkard, getting into the occult – I had to seem such an open book to her. To push her further down that path, I glanced at the card table, but Sébastien was no longer there. Instead, I spotted his fashionable haircut amongst Yusuf’s admirers.

I cleared my throat and shuffled the deck again. ‘Let’s just say I’ve made some choices that I might regret.’

Mélisande’s lips twitched, but she did not say anything. She just stared at me as I shuffled the deck again and again.

I reached to place the cards between us again, but she stopped me. ‘You need to say your question out loud to me.’

‘My question?’ I said. ‘I thought you were reading my future. That doesn’t require a question.’

Her cold fingers stroked the back of my hand before she pulled back. ‘You seem to take me for some attraction at a fair. I’m not reading your future, I’m reading your cards. You need to keep a specific question in mind as you shuffle, and then tell me. Otherwise, five cards would say far too little to be of use.’

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but nodded along like this made sense and I had indeed heard that somewhere before and it wasn’t complete nonsense. Without my earlier patience, I shuffled the cards three more times, then let them hover over the silk cloth as I said, ‘I want to know when I will see my lover again.’

There. Classic. The final piece in the puzzle of my unhappy marriage. It should give her enough to work with – maybe a surprise pregnancy, a betrayal, both of us eloping to herd sheep in Arcadia. I gently placed the cards face-down in front of Mélisande and leaned back again, almost curious about the answer she would dream up for me.

Mélisande lifted the first card from the deck and turned it over. The card was upside down, the image on the other side facing me: a sleeping woman on a chair, surrounded by seven cups, including one shaped like the woman’s head. It was the only one that retained all its contents: the others dripped and leaked and fumed and spilt around her.

Ominous, I’d say, but Mélisande didn’t ask. She was reaching for the second card, but her long nails failed to get a grip of the one she wanted, and instead of one card, she picked a thick pile of six.

‘Apologies,’ she said, placing them to the side, with their back up so I couldn’t see what they said. ‘The energy confused me there.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘Whatever feels right to you.’

While she tried again, I studied the room. I couldn’t see Nicholas anywhere. The rest of the party appeared as harmless as my little activity here. Maybe Yusuf had got the intel wrong. Maybe this was a group that fancied itself embroiled in darkness but did nothing more than host depressing soirées…

When I looked again, Mélisande had added two cards to the set: the first showed a man and a woman clasping hands in front of an abyss. A winged, blindfolded centaur pointed his arrow at the woman. The other card, facing Mélisande, featured a crumbling tower attacked by the rays of the sun.

I clenched my hands into fists under the table. Whatever. This was all nonsense anyway. And a waste of time. I hadn’t even had any of the champagne that everybody else guzzled down like water.

She took another card, placing it underneath the row of three, facing her rather than me: four cups, surrounded by monstrous fishes, one of them ridden by a weeping woman.

I reached for my glass of wine, but found it was already empty. How much longer was this going to take? ‘Is that it?’

‘One more,’ said Mélisande, turning over the final clue: six figures, each holding up a staff. I waited for Mélisande to nod sagely and inform me that my lover – maybe lovers? One for each of those six? – still burnt with desire for me or whatever, but she remained quiet. Resting her chin in her hand, her eyes flicked from one card to the next, until she looked up at me. Her thin eyebrows almost touched, her frown was so deep.

‘So, um…’ She pushed an errant lock behind her ear.

‘Yes?’

‘Good news first or bad news first?’

‘Hit me with the bad news,’ I said. ‘Is it the end?’

‘No. No, the bad news is that – well – you know this. You fear her resentment, her abandonment, her pain, and you are correct. See this,’ she said, gesturing towards the central card, the one of the sleeping woman. ‘It faces you, which means it’s the reversed meaning, and shows your present. For the Seven of Cups, that signifies determination, or a goal nearly attained, but…’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Just continue.’

‘Well, it’s everything that comes after. This card – your past influences – it’s the Lovers, which makes sense. But again, it’s reversed. It’s like, the first shows your willpower, but the second implies that you’ve…’ She twitched her head, and the curl escaped again. She took her time rearranging it, and I was sure she would have gone bright red had her make-up allowed it.

I leaned forward, almost enjoying it now. ‘Reversed Lovers, what’s that? Unnatural inclinations? Extramarital affairs?’ I lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Sodomy?’

She snapped her head up. ‘It means you’ve failed. And it’s led to separation.’

What the -

The next thing I knew, I was fighting with the handle of the balcony door. Some absolute idiot had locked it. Hitting it with the flat of my hand, I wondered if anyone would notice if I broke open this bloody –

A waiter appeared by my side, carrying a tray of champagne flutes. ‘Madame?’

‘Piss off,’ I said, but not without taking him up on his offer.

‘I can unlock this for you. Excuse me.’ He handed me the tray, which was surprisingly heavy considering the deftness with which this thin man lifted it about, and reached for his set of keys, their long, bronze teeth clattering as he fumbled with the lock. I kept my eyes firmly on his hands, not giving Mélisande and her bullshit cards any more of my attention.

How _dare_ she.

How effing _dare_ that child –

The door opened. The tray disappeared from my hands. The waiter gave me another flute. With two glasses of champagne, I stepped onto the balcony, shaking and seething. She thought she could just – as if she knew anything about anything – the nerve of that girl –

A crack, and suddenly my face and arms dripped with champagne. Red blood mixed with fizzy foam on my left hand, which still held the remains of my glass. I clenched my jaw, watching as the shards and splinters were pushed out of my skin and everything healed again, and then I lifted my other glass to my lips and downed half of it.

The image of the weeping woman on the sea monster floated in front of my mind’s eye. Why. Why why why why had that card come up? Even if it was meaningless – and it was, all of this was the purest bullshit – why did it have to remind me?

It means you’ve failed.

I wiped the blood onto the black iron banister. Beneath me, the pebbles of the sloping pavement glistened in the street lights, leading all the way to the city’s new pride, the Sacré Cœur.

Last time Quýnh was here, this had belonged to the Royal Abbey of Montmartre and women were barred from entering. All destroyed during the Revolution. She would not recognise this Paris of Haussmann, with its wide boulevards instead of the dingy little streets that we used to get lost in, illuminated by the moon if we were lucky instead of these electric, state-organised lights. What would she make of it, of the speedy trains and potatoes and Sébastien?

What would I make of her, locked down there for centuries on end?

Was she still afraid? Was she still desperate? How many times do you have to drown before you accept that it will never change and you will be alone in the dark for all eternity?

Not fully alone. Sébastien – he still jerked awake gasping for air, eyes all but popping from their sockets, scratching at an invisible coffin. He didn’t talk about it anymore, but we’d all heard it at night, when he’d offered Quýnh the only glimpse of life outside of her prison. The eternal confirmation that she was still suffering, and we hadn’t done enough to save her.

As if summoned, Sébastien cleared his throat.

I turned around in time to watch him close the balcony doors until they were only just ajar. His movements were slow and haphazardly calculated, but even if I hadn’t seen this behaviour a thousand times before, I could have told his state from the liquor cloud that preceded him. I’d have to talk to him about it later; we shouldn’t get drunk on a job, not even one as depressing as this one.

‘Hi darling,’ he croaked, joining me at the banister. Something crunched when he moved, and we both looked down to see him raise his foot off the shards of my champagne flute. ‘Are you having a nice time?’

‘An absolute rave,’ I said. ‘Did you discover anything?’

‘Victor cheats at cards.’

‘Anything to do with human sacrifice?’

He shook his head.

‘Me neither.’

He lifted his bloodshot eyes up at me, looking like a beaten puppy. I tried not to feel too sorry for him; alcohol often made him melancholy, until those damned immune systems of ours sobered us up far faster than they should. Still, I had not seen him like this since Léonard’s deathbed, so pale and alone.

I rested my hand on his arm, stroking his silk blouse with my thumb in silence. As we stood there, the door below us opened and a group of youths fell over themselves laughing. I recognised Thésée, his arm around the girl who called herself Isis. For all their obsession with death, these kids were still in love with life.

Good for them. It would end soon enough.

Sébastien twitched, following them as they hobbled towards a café, or their apartment, or the Seine, or whatever carefree rich children do at night.

‘Andromache?’

‘Yes?’

He pulled away from me and folded his arms across each other on the banister, still staring at the street Thésée and his friends had disappeared through. ‘Do the dead ever leave us?’

_Yes._

I hesitated. If only Nicholas or Yusuf were here, but –

Perhaps he read the response on my face, because I could see a small spark of hope in his eyes die.

‘How can it be…’ he said. A shiver swept over his features, down to his trembling hands, and he took a breath to steady himself. It failed. ‘How can it be that I still carry all this love for them? Where does it go, where does it belong, if they aren’t – if they aren’t here to receive it anymore? And their love – and hopes and dreams and memories and faith – how can it have been gone for so _long_ already?’

‘Sébastien -’ I reached out for him, but he shrugged off my arm.

‘So long,’ he whispered, and I knew he was replaying all the years that had passed since his first son died, his second, the last, and how every death had seemed like it had to be the end for him, too, but it wasn’t. I wondered if tonight held any anniversaries, or if Paris itself had brought this on.

I squeezed his wrist, knowing how inadequate it was. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Where have you put it?’ he asked, without looking at me. ‘What happened to your love? How can I have thousands more years to go with all this emptiness?’

‘It gets easier,’ I said. My voice didn’t shake, didn’t reveal that my love had turned into shame and regret and abandonment on the bottom of the ocean. I wished she had the luxury Booker’s children had had. ‘It might take forever, but it does.’

He shook his head. ‘Every day I get further away from when I last saw them. Every day they slip further and further away from me, and I can’t – I – I forget about them.’ This time, he didn’t reject my embrace, hiding his face in the crook of my neck. ‘I can’t recall how Léonard used to smell or Vincent’s laugh. I used to have so much love for them and I can’t remember, but the love doesn’t go away. I still see their faces, Andromache. I see them every day but they’re not real and –’

I kissed the top of his head, tasting his pomade on my lips, and had nothing to say that he hadn’t heard a hundred times before. It fades. They fade. Time heals all wounds, just so much more slowly than you imagine possible. But we have time, and one day Sébastien will struggle to remember his sons’ names, and that pain will be easier.

The balcony doors opened again. I prayed it would be Yusuf of Nicholas telling us to leave, but Mélisande of all people poked her head out, her features ghostly in the evening darkness. Her eyes flicked to Sébastien, but then rested on my face with such constancy that she had to be making an active effort. I appreciated that.

‘I’m sorry if I upset you,’ she said, when neither Sébastien nor I greeted her. ‘Listen, I’m about to be – I’ve just been chosen, but I wanted to tell you something before I go.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Whatever.’

‘Your cards - I told you the bad news, but not the good.’ She lifted the corners of her mouth in what was almost a smile, were it not for the fear in her eyes. ‘Things are dark now – and they will be for a long time – but your final card? Six of Wands promises reversal. Good news, desires realised.’

‘What a relief,’ I said.

She lifted her hand, but thought better of it just in time. ‘It will take a long time. Longer than anything I’ve ever read. But don’t lose hope. This is Paris,’ she said. ‘Anything is possible here.’

Whatever she read in my face, it made her back off. As she pulled the doors closed again, Sébastien lifted his head. Wiping his finger along the rim of his lashes, he looked at Mélisande’s retreating back. ‘What was that?’

‘She thought she could read my future.’

He raised his eyebrows with extravagant zeal which failed to hide the hurt still written all over his features, but at least he tried. He was getting back to normal. ‘That must have been quite a ride. Poor girl.’

‘Yes, well…’

Clearing his throat, Sébastien ran his hand over his hair, securing no strands had gone awry. ‘What did she say? Something about being chosen? Don’t you think…’

‘No.’

He trailed his hand down my arm, which broke out in goose bumps. Bloody French fashion, insisting women go without sleeves while the men had shirts and jackets and cravats to keep them warm. Bloody French with their touchy-feely –

‘I’ll take a look,’ he said. ‘But if you need me, give me a shout.’

He was too drunk, too distraught to be any good, but I watched him leave. Whatever.

Whatever. I didn’t care.

Rubbing my hands up and down my biceps, I stared out over the expanse of lights and music that was Paris. Beautiful, dazzling, electrifying Paris, city of love, where Quýnh had rescued countless citizens during the Jacquerie and always ended up dancing on the tables in the inns. What would she make of it now? Would she have been here if I hadn't failed?

 _A reversal._ I scoffed at the idea. What could possibly change now that had been lost for so long already?

And still. And still and still and still. Paris promised change. It always did.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, keep an eye out for the three other perspectives on this night. coming to a fic near you soon.


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